Check and Mate
by Ariel the Tempest
Summary: Jin answers some pointed questions with a pointed parable. [Spoilers for episode 5.]


They had started playing at first light, and now the sun was nearly overhead, but Roukishi had yet to figure out the young ronin with the fearsome memory. There were some wonderful tidbits dropped yesterday—the willingness to speak about his master's shougi skill, the sudden silence when the subject turned to kendo—and none of them nearly enough to paint a picture with. For a career criminal whose life and livelihood often depended on his ability to perceive a man's strengths and weaknesses immediately, this was a little distressing, so Roukishi chose to take it as a test of his skill.

Not that he wasn't being subjected to a test already. Truly, the master must have been a god of the game board for the pupil to be of this caliber. Not that the boy didn't take his own sweet time about it. The old man had just made what he thought to be a quite smashing move; he anticipated a long wait while his opponent decided on a proper reply.

The ronin folded his hands as if praying, and rested his head on the tips of his fingers. It was a most devout posture—if you could not see his eyes, which seemed to have charts of possible moves laid out behind them, with his mind analyzing the risks and benefits of each. Correction: Roukishi anticipated waiting until the European ships came back on their next slave run.

"Sensei used to tell a story that he said proved the power of shougi."

The young samurai had spoken seldom enough, particularly while choosing his moves, that the sound of his soft voice was jarring. Roukishi stayed silent, eager to assimilate any volunteered information.

"He said that once there was a rich, idle young man who desired enlightenment but had not the focus to attain it. In desperation, he asked the wise abbot of a Zen monastery if there was a shortcut, a way to make himself more fit for the path of contemplation.

"The abbot said to him, 'There is a way, but it requires great determination. Is there anything in life, anything at all, that you have devoted yourself to and truly studied?'

"The young man said, 'In my idleness, the only thing I did much of was to play shougi.' The abbot had a board laid out and summoned a good and faithful monk as the man's opponent.

"Before they began to play, the abbot pulled out a sword and announced that the loser would forfeit his life—if it was the monk, he would go straight to Paradise. If it was the idler, well, he deserved it for failing at the one thing he had applied himself to.

"Of course, this made the young man very, very intent on the game. The board became his whole world; he focused as he never had before. Soon enough, he was soundly beating the monk. However, as they played, he looked at his opponent, and saw the light of virtue and intelligence that burned bright within him. Compared with this man, was his idle life worth anything at all? He deliberately began to blunder, in order that the monk might be spared.

"As his defense crumbled, the abbot stopped the game. 'Two things are required for enlightenment,' he said. 'The first is concentration, which you learned when you feared for your life. The second is compassion, which you demonstrated when you set aside your own fear in concern for another. No one has lost this game, and no one shall die for it.'"

Thin white fingers reached out and lighted on a piece. They did not move it yet, but Roukishi could see the impending doom. For the first time, the ronin's eyes were not respectfully lowered, nor half-lidded, nor occupied with calculations. It was like a swordsman pushing his scabbard back to show an inch of blade to the bandit thinking of troubling him. What the old man saw in those eyes confirmed his darkest suspicions, and exceeded his brightest imaginings.

With the same quiet control as ever, Jin said, "Sensei liked to fancy himself the abbot in the story: wise, devout, restrained.

"He wasn't. And I am not the young idler." The fingers slid the piece into position. Gin. Victory. A life spared and a purse earned.

Roukishi gave a glinting golden grin. "And I am no monk."

The young ronin was, for once, noticeably discomposed when he burst into storms of laughter in front of the police detective.


End file.
